


escape

by butter_scotch_dreams



Series: poetry [1]
Category: Original Work, Poetry - Fandom
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Atheism, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Brain Surgery, Broken Bones, Bugs & Insects, Chemicals, Confusion, Crushes, Depression, Eating Disorders, Escapril Poetry Challenge, Evolution, Extinction, F/F, FUCK, Fight or Flight, Finding Peace, Five Stages of Grief, Flowers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Full Moon, Gay Rights, Gen, Graphic Description, Grief/Mourning, Hair Dyeing, Hands, Heat Stroke, Heaven, Heaven & Hell, Hell, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intrusive Thoughts, It Sucks, LISTEN IM GAY AND SOFT OK, Love, Love Confessions, Made myself cry, Medical Procedures, Medusa - Freeform, Mental Parasite, Metaphors, Mild Gore, Moon, Moon Phases, Mythology References, Non-binary character, Ocean, Opinion Piece, Panic, Panic Attacks, Pansexual Character, Peace, Pinterest, Plants, Poetry, Rain, Recovery, Sacrilege, Sadness, Science, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sensory Overload, Stargazing, Stars, Stonewall, Stonewall Riots, Suggestive Themes, Taxidermy, Tears, Teeth, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Trans rights, Trauma, Trees, Unrequited Love, Water, Wicca, Witchcraft, Wrists, and i heavily(?) imply that she’s gay, and i like to write witchy poetry, and is a Good Friend, anyone who treats them with human decency, author is a lovesick fucking FOOL, clinical body horror, effigy is a cool word, f u c k!!!!, gen z kids, god is a lesbian ok, god is a woman, grass, i just want a gf or bf or nbf pleaSE, im a witch, im gay ok, lavender - Freeform, lesbian medusa bc why tf not, losing yourself, m e t a p h o r s, m e t a p h o r s !!!, no beta we die like men, one sentence poems, posiedon hate club owo, posiedon is a disgusting fuck, really fucking scary, sacrilegious squad 😗✌️, this is really all just vent poetry now huh?, vent - Freeform, way too many religion motifs for an atheist writer probably, who manages to fall for literally, wtf even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:55:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23439538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butter_scotch_dreams/pseuds/butter_scotch_dreams
Summary: escapril 2020
Series: poetry [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755343
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. the world is still.

**Author's Note:**

> dawn

the world is still. soft shadows break and let the stars dissolve, as fate's bright fingers tear into the night. and when the light fills up our lungs, our bones, our veins, apollo burns our blighted skin into the edge of day. now fair artemis must bid us adieu, for when the stars are his, our hunt is stalled by skies of gold and blue.

the world is still.


	2. the stages of human decomposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> growth/decay

_i. autolysis_

there is  
a pit inside my chest. when i stand on the edge of my broken  
ribcage, i can see the  
way my blood has stopped within its  
viens. my body is of stone and  
diamond, as  
blisters peel glistening skin  
away.

_ii. bloat_

i float  
away from splintered bone and  
empty lungs that  
will not breathe,  
and  
watch skin fade from green to red as my blood makes its  
escape. i hope that it will find a life  
fueling another  
heart,  
before it too, decays.

_iii. active decay_

plants wrap  
their way around my shins, sprout  
in the caved in chasm of my chest, grow up my spine,  
burst through my throat and  
towards the  
gold of sun. i am the same as them;  
my eyes are gone, flesh,  
lungs, my stomach,  
and we  
survive through hollowed bones.

_iv. skeletonization & decomposition_

i stand  
on the edge of my broken  
ribcage and it is all that's left.


	3. are you still here?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> is anyone listening?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: intrusive thoughts

hear me scream through thread and needles.  
can bloodied lips still make a sound?  
 _(can you hear me? listenlistenlisten)  
_ hear the fear inside my skull.  
can anybody read my mind?  
 _(can you stop? shutupshutupshutup_

_getoutofmyhead)_


	4. &

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> earthly pleasures

the sunlight strikes your face as you smile &  
y'know, as i watch you laying in the grass & weaving flowers into crowns,  
i think i'm glad i stayed alive


	5. it was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the view from up here

when you bike to my house, it is morning. the moon, a glowing stain of symmetry upon the star blotched sky.

we stand on the sidewalk barefoot, stare at the sky; i ask you if the view was worth it.

it was.

then perhaps i too will slip away.


	6. butterflies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if ur username is GracieHoltPidgeon you better not be reading this *narrows eyes*
> 
> tw!!!!!!!!!!! graphic descriptions of self-harm.

count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

seven open wounds. fingers prod at split skin, gaping white. blood fills and spills across the edge; a forbidden darkened wine.

count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

seven open wounds. if only they were deeper; if only fat like stolen gold peered through skin curled back like butterfly wings.

count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

seven open wounds. healed and ripped apart again. if only muscle rippled beneath a gauzy veil.

and yet, and yet, and yet. count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 are only shimmering white beneath the blood count12345671234567123456712345671234567and the skin is closed. white strips like butterfly wings. one two three four five six seven


	7. oxytocin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chemical reaction

i reach into my chest and pull my heart away. and oxytocin, courses through my veins again. if i could overdose

on love, i’d gladly drink down that sweet poison.


	8. looking for home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hometown

i watch the headlights flicker; im a long way from home, but who knows where that is?

_maybe i’ll find it someday_


	9. natural light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> natural light

you are sprawled on the ground, staring up at the tree tops.

the light that filters through the leaves fills your mouth with cotton and your head with stone. it’s nice here.

a lovely place to die.

you close your eyes and watch rings of color flash across your eyelids;

they remind you of home.


	10. disappear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> parasitic

you feel it twisting ‘round your brain

imagination warped, an endless coil of something wicked

you want it outoutout; it stays and once again, you drown.

imagine being free again, you think, or rather, you would have thought; your thoughts are

you feel

confusion

where

disappearing

whats happeni

i

drstand


	11. one day i will go back outside and see you ok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> heaven/hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from baby hotline by jack stauber

the way we break//break//break//again again again against frozen brick and//painted skies.//if only i could throw myself outside and//let the rain lift me to heaven//but here i am.//and though i know the gods aren’t//real i wish//wish//wish//for their salvation. just strike me down//so i may burn,//for nothing’s here for me.//and damn i wish that they would//listen//but they aren’t real and,//fuck this//neither am i.


	12. float

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> submerged in water

you are sprawled on your bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars that pepper your ceiling. when the tears pool in your eyes they fly up and fill the room instead of rolling down.

floating has always been hard. when you were five and learning to swim in the guppies class at the ymca, you sank like a stone. you would lay back and the water would swallow you; an offering to the chlorinated depths.

now, you don’t try to float. instead you open your eyes under a sea of salt, watch the way your hair swirls around you; tangles of seaweed growing from your barnacle splotched skin. it is peaceful here. the curtains flutter against closed windows, white sails struggling past ocean tides.

you are sprawled on your bed, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars you plastered across the ceiling when you were just five and learning how to swim. they shimmer still, the glue unbroken by your sea.

you fill your lungs and watch the bubbles of your breath float up and disappear.


	13. beetles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the city

the lights glow like broken beetle wings. i remember when you used to tear them away from the beetle’s backs; it made me cry. im glad that you are gone now. i am content with the smog, hiding me away, the forward motion of the world, the way the lights shine like broken beetle wings and far away from you.


	14. soft thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pink, like your brain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw!!! body horror but in like a medical way and not a gory way !
> 
> stay safe, lovelies!!

if i could sever my own skin, split apart its seams and watch the blood and lies slip off my scalpel. if i could carve through bone like butter, my saw held steady by paper hands. if i could break apart my skull, press jagged bone to sweaty palms. if i could swallow down my anesthesia, a sleeping gas of siren song. if i could watch the way my hands still as i finally reach my mind, pink, like your brain, filled by soft thoughts of golden eyes.


	15. white linen sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> euphoria

there are clouds in her eyes and

stars across her skin, when cherry

lips brush pianist fingers and

sun-kissed shoulders meet the edge of

her collar bone, and the curve

of her hip against white linen sheets

takes my breath away.


	16. peaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bearing fruit

beauty is in the beholder’s eye

and she is all i see. we deserve a soft

future, love; just us sprawled

under the peach tree, hands intertwined.

maybe then as we lay in the grass and

feel it embrace us with the wind and let

the sun fill us again, we can finally

be at peace. beauty is in the beholder’s

eye and all i can see is her,

smiling again.


	17. a guide to the delicate art of losing yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> grief

i. _denial_

trace the raindrops that trail down your windows before splattering across the ground just like the blood on your hands did when you dropped the knife. watch the ceiling swirl around you and forget that time still flows. go through the motions again; stop thinking. cut and dye your hair, then watch it dissipate, the same way you were not supposed to.

_ii. anger_

break the glass of your bathroom mirror because you still look the same. squeeze the shards in your hands until silver powder fills your pores. run the bath until it almost overflows and then scald yourself when the water drains instead of overflowing because you need to feel something. go to the kitchen and let salt melt on your tongue so you can remember the way tears tasted when they flooded your face and made it hard to breathe. try to finally cry again. fail.

_iii. bargaining_

pray to gods you don’t believe in so they may forgive the fake sins that used to fill your soul. paint self-portraits until you can’t recognize your face, until your body and mind match. catch a glimpse of your face in the broken mirror shards on your bathroom floor and feel yourself float away. watch from above as you worship ancient gods, long fallen from grace, knees pressed to tile, before an altar of glass and blood, mumbling broken prayers to no one but yourself.

_iv. depression_

forget how to control your muscles. cut across tendons and break the marrow from your bones. let sleep evade you through helios and selene’s dance. hollow out your chest, pull your heart past pounding ribs, spool your veins like sewing thread, pile your intestines on the ground and feel the empty grow. steal ice from the freezer and scissors from the store. forge armor from the way your hips jut out and your collar bone is razor sharp and from the burning in your thighs, your stomach, wrists, cheek, ankles and smelt a sword from the iron of your own blood.

_v. acceptance_

buy a new mirror. open the windows when it rains and let your curtains be sails in the raging storm. sit on your roof and cry, just because you can. count the seconds until your cells replace themselves, fill the bath, and hold your breath, wait for yourself to be ok. look at the way your hips still jut out and the way your collar bone is still razor sharp, but you can’t see your ribs anymore, and when you look up at your face, it is no longer someone else’s. you cry, because damn it, you’re finally ok.


	18. lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how did the sky look?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is fucking horrible :/

i met god in the lavender field outside of town.

she wore yellow; the color of the sun, and i finally felt warm.

we walked together, through the flower blossoms, and as i watched her, right beside me, i decided that she wasn’t real.

i told her so.

she smiled at me, “and what about you?”

she held me while i cried. told me how the sky was just the same back when the world was ice and dust and fire.

i barely noticed her disappear.


	19. grass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it’s tough to be a bug

when you are

invisible. it’s hard to

make people hear you scream.

so you find solace

in the safety of the

grass


	20. silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> moon

deft fingers grasp burning candles, swirl wax to seal the spell, bottled love and lavender and a hope that he’ll be ok.

silver light reflects off raindrops, the pond, her soaking hair: rainwater’s good for rebirth (and maybe she can be reborn)

whispered charms, enchantments, glamours, as moonlight bathes them in blue. an added prayer for friends and strangers; they just want them to survive.

the moon spills magic; we spill it back.


	21. hands, wrists, teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hands, wrists, teeth

there are bite marks on my knuckles and bite marks on my knees. and maybe it’s not normal to lose all of your teeth. but when i speak, just shards of bone fall out to make my numb jaw creak. if you only let me brush a hand against your face, as the other curled around your waist, and my wrist was pressed to silk. and maybe when it’s all over, i will no longer wilt.


	22. into the woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> into the woods

and the woods of my mind are too dense to see light; maybe that’s why i’ve lost my way.


	23. overloaded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> focus on the texture

the world is spinning and blurring and everything is bright and bright and bright and when did everything get so loud why cant they shut up shut up shut up and your breath is stuck why is it stuck whats happening to you your ears are burning and your hands and face and it spreads and youre on fire why is this happening to you your legs wont bend and suddenly theyre weak weak weak and why is everything so bright again please stop talking why why why cant you stop its so loud and your heart is pounding faster than you can count and the panic is rising like bile and youre going to be sick and god why why why stop please the floor is cold touch the floor the floor is cold it isnt bright or loud touch the floor the floor is cold. it is smooth. touch the floor. the cold floor. there are grooves in the floor.

the floor is cold. your skin is hot. but the floor. the floor is cold.

the floor isnt moving. its cold. cold floor.

focus on the texture.


	24. diy black hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> black hole

hold yourself together with duct tape; you can use it later. think of the way your teeth ache and bask in the pain. add one discord video call, filled with static, a glimpse into another’s life. wonder how this could have happened. why your chest spills light when all you’re offered is friendship, a kind word, a conversation. stir in the throbbing empty of rejection, because a distance hurts the soul. pretend that you aren’t hurt at all, because being hurt? that would be selfish. scroll through his pinterest; hate yourself for being jealous of his closer friends. why are you like this? why do you ruin things like this? why do you take a simple friendship and latch to it like it’s something more? why do you wake up and catch glimpses of him in the edges of your dreams? why do you care so much when he’s a computer screen away? throw in the questions and wait. your heart aches and throbs. it has always been the black hole.


	25. on the origin of species

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> extinction

seems like a century ago, my mother read me charles darwin  
and now on my own, i flip through brittle pages  
run equally brittle fingers along spiderweb-inked sketches  
gather fireflies in jars, soak frogs in formaldehyde  
collect needles and pin butterfly wings to labels  
fill my lungs with sickly sweet chloroform,  
dissolve flesh away, scrub and polish pearly white bone  
i wait and watch for my own extinction, forever frozen, stretched skin, taxidermied preservation  
seems like a century ago, my mother read me charles darwin, on the origin of species, on the finale of my own.


	26. medusa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> serpentine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight tw for implied rape!! this is based on the myth of medusa.
> 
> stay safe, lovelies!! <3

spill poison into my veins, turn me to stone my sweet medusa. we'll dance between statues of men, swords held aloft, punished by athena. you deserve better love, i swear they won't dare place a hand on you again. we'll love away from them, beyond posiedon's icy reach, so kiss me quick and save my life.


	27. i am a monster of teeth and arteries; (effigies of divinity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fight or flight

burn icarus’s wings against your skin; let the wax turn you to fire and brimstone; send his broken feathers to a bitter end. and when you lower him to rest, let leviticus ignite in sacrilege for another god.

i break my teeth on history and eurydice holds tightly to my heart; orpheus is of backward glances; the taste of regret, heavy on your tongue. bring me to the temple of wrathful aphrodite; i am an effigy of lazurus and the breaking of dusted and forgotten veins.

let my lost figure flee; i trip against echoes of narcissus, his last words a prayer chanted against the roof of my mouth; this is the smell of tragedies and i am but a monster of teeth and arteries; if there only was a memory of my love.


	28. we are of love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ____ as a weapon

we are of colors like butterfly wings & the bitter taste of june, 1969 & our love is built from their fear. we are the brick of stonewall inn & the pressure of bodies in the street, young & old & so full of love for each other & love for our love. we are the bloodied faces of protest & the sound of the generations past. we are of love & we will love each other when you do not love us & our love is a weapon & we won’t let you take away the memory of our love, in june, 1969.


	29. black + white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> monochrome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a shit excuse of a “poem” but why tf not

look into the sun, my dear and burn away the color. we float above the clouds; the world doesn’t have to be in color for my love to see you.


	30. we are kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dusk

we are only kids, you know, but god, we’ve seen too much.

when the sun sets again, we are awake; we are children of fear.

we are only kids; why do we recite (eyes, groin, ears, throat), keep whistles, house keys, gripped tight against white knuckles when we walk down the street?

when the sun sets again, we are alive; we are children of injustice.

we are only kids; why do we scream until we’re hoarse (please we want an earth to still be here for _us_ ) only for the world to wither?

when the sun sets again, we are dangerous; we are children of pain.

we are only kids; why do we plead for the lives of our own and watch them get sealed behind bars and walls?

when the sun sets again, we are desensitized; we are children of heartbreak.

we are only kids; why aren’t we shocked when yet again, we watch our friends bleed out on classroom floors?

when the sun sets again, we are disappointed; we are children of the past.

we are only kids; why do we get bruised and bloodied for bathing cityscapes in color and the the sound of our love?

when the sun sets again, we are hollow; we are children of emptiness.

we are only kids; why do we stare down death and fear and trauma and laugh when we cant cry?

when the sun sets again, we are resolute; we are children of the future.

we are only kids; we stand where the past has fallen and just watch, because we have managed to survive.

when the sun sets again, we are growing; we are children of the night.

we are only kids; we pick up pieces of our history and paste them back together.

when the sun sets again, we are colorful; we are children.

we are only kids; we make flower crowns, hold hands like we did before; we fill our hearts with plants and the stars and everything beautiful; we breathe and love and watch the sun set.

we are just kids who’ve seen too much, y’know, but maybe now we can be kids who are ok.


End file.
